Rosaly Lopes has a new blog post on the Planetary Society blog on the mysteries still surrounding Everyone's Favorite Moon (and if it isn't your favorite moon, then may a giant, falling chunk of komatiite greet you ). She aludes to the upcoming observations by New Horizons to study surface changes and volcanic activity on Io, and to an upcoming book, on Io. The book, Io After Galileo, is currently on Amazon, but rest assured, it will be available until early 2007.

(and if it isn't your favorite moon, then may a giant, falling chunk of komatiite greet you

With you there bud, 100%. There is only one moon that is truly a _real_ moon, eh. Take your dwarf panets and smoke them but Io will remain the one really genuine active extraterretrial for some time to come. Yeeeeeehaaaaw.

With you there bud, 100%. There is only one moon that is truly a _real_ moon, eh. Take your dwarf panets and smoke them but Io will remain the one really genuine active extraterretrial for some time to come. Yeeeeeehaaaaw.

Seems like a good time to ask the question, "How would you design a mega-radiation-hardened Io orbiter?" I can't imagine, frankly...only thing I can think of is about 5000 KG of electron tubes and one hell of a set of RTGs!

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A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.

"After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined, and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

I have that book too. It is okay, but it makes vexgizmo look not so nice... Could have done with more science, and less "Rick Greenberg's fight against the Man". "Io after Galileo" is more like a collection of overview papers, presenting the current state of knowledge, with each chapter written by a different set of authors. "Europa: The Ocean Moon" is more about Rick Greenberg's argument that the Europa icy crust is thin, and that all other arguments are just the status quo story by the establishment...

(and if it isn't your favorite moon, then may a giant, falling chunk of komatiite greet you ).

I'd love to agree, but my favorite moon has to be one that I (OK, my descendants) have a better chance of setting foot on. That being said, I used to have Io as the wallpaper on my laptop and I would test people before I gave presentations. I gave up because they kept guessing it was a pizza.

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Popper: A party entertainment, filled with confetti and a small explosive charge.

Without both sides of the argument being presented in the book, I'm hesitant to take a side. But I have seen a lot of other "instant science" analysis in planetary science over the years that later was either completely discounted or felt to be a gross oversimplificatin. And I've been hearing complaints from the scientific community for years that NASA spends all the money on the mission, spends 15 minutes analyizing 20% of the data, and them moves on to the next destination.

But if you slip past the periodic " the initial analysis by so-called experts in the wrong field were completely wrong" portions of the book, it still makes for a fascinating read. I came away from the book seriously doubting the absolute necessity of an Europa orbiter preceeding a lander. I thought he made a pretty good case that we know more about Europa than many experts would have you believe.

I keep hoping that the next New Fronteirs mission is an "Io Observer" .... a multiple flyby mission to build on the Galileo results, and take a few flybys of Europa while it just happens to be in the neighborhood. I can't shake my doubts that the Europa Orbiter is turning into the latest version of "Mars Sample Return" and "Comet Rendesvous" .... missions endlessly studied and promoted as "the highest priority" .... but never flown.

ljk4-1 wrote: Speaking of Io mysteries: Remember the 1981 SF film Outland, which took place ona mining colony on that moon?

Hello again. You are correct and I remember the film that I did see in the movie theater here.I have earlier mentioned my lifelong friend with a space interest here, yes he was sitting in the chair next to mine nudging me asking questions of what I thought about the details. This was at a time when we worked together as undertakers. Enough look backs for me - get on with it!!

Sean Connery starring in a film about a moon that was a subject almost everyone's lips after the discovery of the violent vulcanism - irresistable combination! The film made in UK, directed and adapted by Peter Hyams.The spacesuits seemed to me to be thin for such a heavy radiation environment and I had a hard time accepting those when I watched - but on the other hand, if they only used those in the mine underground.One detail I remember was a sort of grid outside the base. At first I didnt understand what the function was until in a fight one assasin did drop off and skitted down it sparks flying. I got the idea that it was supposed to be for power tapping energy from Jupiters radiation belt. So at the time I accepted Outland to be good sciense vice from what we knew back then, I was even suprised they gotten it so up to current knowledge - on the other hand there were not much shown of the actual surface of Io from what I can remember.

The utter mystery of Io certainly is mind-boggling, and this satellite definitely makes my top 10. Had to chuckle at Stevo's anecdote about "pizza-face" Io

Paul Schenk and others have written about the "surprisingly low relief" of the regions surrounding the hot spots. Paul noted that unlike Mars with its great shield volcanos, Ra Patera, the largest shield volcano on Io, was only 1 km high and its slope was <0.5 deg.

Looking at the images that have become available (huge thanks to the imaging teams for providing them and to the community of amateurs and professionals alike for producing a variety of enhanced versions), it just seems to me that the regions near the active hot spots are shaped like lakes. So the question is: "What is the evidence by which we know that the flowing material (whatever it is) is flowing away from and not toward the active regions?

This would seem to be the best place to ask this question - does Io have any officially recognised impact craters at the available resolution achieved by the Galileo probe?Having searched the net, all the resources available state that Io has "very few if any" or "almost none" or "none" I've been unable to find any images which unequivocally show an impact structure.The only other solid body so far imaged reasonably closely which shows none at all is Atlas, and that is presumably due to continuing accretion of ring particles, and the shielding effect of the F-ring for projectiles coming in equatorially to Saturn.

No, to date no obvious impact craters have been identified on Io. There have been a few features that have been suspected as such, such as a pit in northern Zal Montes, but these are better explained by other processes, like sapping. Another suspected impact feature is a circular feature within Heno Patera, but our current data at this volcano is of too low resolution to confirm this.

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